


Eccedentesiast

by Yessica



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Abuse, Child Death, Drabble, Gen, Pre-Canon, Psychological Trauma, Vent Writing, this is fucked up yoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24311920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yessica/pseuds/Yessica
Summary: Chris ran away from home. That is what Dad said, then repeats over and over whenever he forgets, pressing it into his mind like bruises into skin. It curls up there, heavy and comfortable. Cold like ice.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Eccedentesiast

**Author's Note:**

> Me: -sees a character that has been abused as a child-
> 
> Me: is this an invitation to project and vent write?

Chris ran away from home.

That is what Dad said, then repeats over and over whenever he forgets, pressing it into his mind like bruises into skin. It curls up there, heavy and comfortable. Cold like ice.

"The lake-" Eric says, but gets interrupted immediately by a smack so sudden it sends him splaying onto the ground. He cups one hand against his stinging cheek, tears burning at the back of his eyes but held at bay by rapid blinking.

He smiles.

"You never went to that lake," his father says clearly, slowly, like talking to a little child and that's all Eric is really – nine years old and scared – so maybe it isn't even that bad to believe him. "I wasn't home that night. You were watching tv. And Chris ran away."

"Chris ran away," he echoes back but remembers the crunching of his boots in the snow.

The police come to their house two days later. They look around, talk to Dad, and eventually, a friendly-looking policewoman with dark curls and an easy smile sits down with him on his bedroom floor. She plays with him for a bit, racing the toy cars around the carpet. Then she starts asking him about his brother.

"How old is he?"

Eric swallows. "He is six." Chris just started elementary school. They were going to take the bus together each day now. Eric was going to look out for him because that's what older brothers do. Because that's what his mother told him to do before she died.

"Do you know where he could have run off to, so late at night?"

Eric wants to say Chris was scared of the dark. That he needed the nightlight on or he couldn't sleep at all. He wants to say that Chris would never run away.

"No," he says – and smiles.

For a few weeks, there is a lot of ruckus. There are people walking in and out of their living room, talking a lot, collecting missing posters to be spread around the neighborhoods. Lots of people search and every time they go into the forest, go near the lake, Eric holds his breath.

Maybe the hole is still there.

But nothing happens and Dad doesn't even drink anymore, doesn't hit him.

When Eric sleeps he dreams of tile walls, of fingers squeezing around Chris' throat. He dreams of hanging onto his father's shoulder, pulling and begging and yelling for him to stop. He dreams of watching his brother's face turn blue.

Three months later his father breaks down and cries. He holds Eric tight, lifts him up and Eric's heart is rattling inside his chest – like it might fall out any second. He is so frightened he can only smile.

"I'm sorry-" Dad sobs, his breath smelling of sour alcohol and cigarette smoke. "You know daddy loves you, right? Loves you all. I shouldn't have done it. But I get so angry when you are difficult. After she-"

Eric lifts his hands to hold onto his father's back, buries his head into the crook of his neck.

"I'm proud of you," Dad says eventually, after putting him down. "You did well. They didn't find shit. It can be just the two of us now."

Eric nods, chokes on the thought of doing what he did. There's a weight crushing him and if he didn't know any better he'd know it for the dead weight it was. The sort of dead weight only produced by the limp body of a six-year-old dragging through the forest.

When he made it to the lake, sweat pouring down Eric's back despite the frigid temperature, he remembers laying his brother out. The blonde hair and the white snow made him look almost like an angel, if you ignored the bruises around his throat or the wide-open, frightened eyes.

They were blue like mother's.

He bent down and maybe it was his brother's voice saying his name. Maybe there was still air rattling in Chris' lungs.

The sound the ice made when it cracked was nothing like in the cartoons. Sitting on the lakebed, with the snow sinking into his bright green mittens, Eric laughed. Laughed so hard he felt tears streaming down his cheeks.

By the time another few months have passed, Dad is back to drinking when he comes home from work and hitting Eric.

And Eric is smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. if you come to my tumblr and talk zero escape with me I'll love you forever!
> 
> [my Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


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